City council members of Bayonne silent on mayor's 'sexting' scandal

City Council members are mum on the lewd text messages Mayor Jimmy Davis sent to a woman who was fired from her city job in December.

"I have nothing to say," said Councilman Sal Gullace, one of the five council members who either declined to comment or did not return a phone call. All of them ran with Davis when he won the 2014 mayoral race.

Asked about the sexts at Wednesday night's council meeting, where the woman who received them spoke out publicly for the first time, Business Administrator Joe DeMarco directed The Jersey Journal to the mayor's spokeswoman "because I'm not speaking on it and I don't think any other council member will either."

Stacie Percella, the woman who received the text messages, has called on the mayor to resign.

"I didn't tarnish Jimmy's reputation. He did that himself," she told council members on Wednesday.

The mayor, a Democrat, faces re-election next May.

Screenshots of some of the lewd text messages, which include pleas from the mayor to have the woman meet him at an Atlantic City hotel and multiple references to oral sex, have been circulating online for weeks.

Percella told The Jersey Journal she had recently rediscovered the messages, some of which date back to 2013, when she was searching for texts Davis sent her about a sexual harassment lawsuit she filed against the city under the previous administration.

She said she was fired from her position as a clerk in the Department of Public Works after a conversation with a constituent that the administration found inappropriate.

A spokesman for Vision Media -- the PR firm that is overseeing damage control -- called Percella's allegations "part of an orchestrated campaign to make millions of off of Bayonne taxpayers and destroy Mayor Davis' reputation."